Magazine Garbage Bins

"We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us.  When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." -Aldo Leopold

While recently talking to my brother, he told me that he has not read a book that hasn't been about caring for the environment or other global issues in years.  When I decided to start on my recycled magazine garbage bin, I asked him if he would write a book review for my blog for the payment of a garbage bin.  This is his review:

The natural world around us is degrading on a daily basis. What we currently describe as nature will likely not be the same definition our grandchildren will use. Aldo Leopold, a founding father of American ecology, understood this long before most other people. In his book, A Sand County Almanac, he cries for action to change the way humans interact with land. In this book, published in 1949, Leopold elegantly combines natural history, descriptions of species, and his own philosophy. He stresses that we must change the way we see nature and emphasizes the importance of developing a land ethic, or a responsible relationship between people and the land they inhabit. In describing his land ethic idea, Leopold wrote, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Despite Leopold’s pleas to change the way we treat our land, we continue to live in a world were the environment is seen as a commodity. The rainforest continues to be cleared at an astronomical rate, mountaintops are still being removed to extract coal to feed an unsustainable energy grid, and unfortunately, we live in a world where it is nearly impossible to fight the corporations leading the environmental destruction. We may not be able to create complete harmony between humans and land, but small actions such as creating a garbage bin out of recycled materials instead of purchasing one made out of oil and shipped with oil does follow the land ethic.  

I used the concept from the Big A** Book of Crafts for the circle based garbage bin, which lead me to create my own design.  (Hint: If you want even circles like mine, use the cap of the glue stick as a mold). Here are the directions for the tube garbage bin.

Materials:

• Glue Sticks (Elmer's Xtreme works really well)
• Magazines or Glossy Advertisements
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun and Hot Glue Sticks
• Modge Podge

Directions:

1. Cut out strips of magazines.  Make sure they are not thicker than an 1/8th of an inch.

2. Take the glue stick and apply glue to one of the strips.  Roll this strip on top of itself to start forming a disk.

3.  Continue adding strips to the disk in order to create the base for the garbage can.  (I used my bathroom garbage can as a sizing tool for this part).

4.  Once this is completed, cover the based with modge podge in order to make it more solid and stable. Let dry.

5. In the mean time, start rolling whole pages of magazines into small tubes.  Apply glue to the edge with the glue stick and press together. 

6. Create enough of these to go around the base standing up.

7.  With the glue gun, glue the rolls to the base.  Start by gluing them vertically and attaching glue at the base and side meeting points.

8.  Once completed, remove extra glue and decide if you want to keep it the magazine color or if you want to spray paint it.